Gogo confirms West Loop move is a go

In-flight wireless provider Gogo Inc. will move its headquarters downtown from the suburbs, eventually bringing more than 500 jobs to the West Loop, the firm and the city said today.

Itasca-based Gogo will lease 232,000 square feet at 111 N. Canal St., in one of the largest suburbs-to-city relocations in years, according to today's joint news release from the company and Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office. The announcement confirmed a Crain's report yesterday that a deal in the 95-year-old West Loop office building was imminent.

When Gogo moves sometime next year to the 16-story vintage office tower, it will initially bring more than 460 employees, with plans to add more than 50 jobs within the next two years, the company said.

Gogo is moving its headquarters and its commercial aviation business from the western suburb near O'Hare International Airport. Gogo, which went public in June, has been in Itasca since 2007.

The company also considered options in Colorado, where it runs its business aviation division in Broomfield, Gogo said.

“As we concluded our search for a new company headquarters, it was clear that the state and the city have made considerable efforts to raise Chicago's profile as a technology hub and our new company headquarters puts us at the epicenter of that activity in a location that's better suited for the rapid growth we expect at Gogo,” the company's president and CEO, Michael Small, said in the news release.

It is the largest migration from the suburbs to the city since Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc.'s blockbuster deal signed last year to move 2,000 Motorola Mobility employees to more than 600,000 square feet at the Merchandise Mart from north suburban Libertyville. Gogo's lease is comparable in size to Sara Lee Corp. meat spinoff Hillshire Brands Co.'s move to 400 S. Jefferson St. in the West Loop from the west suburbs.

The Gogo and Hillshire Brands deals both were in buildings owned by Chicago-based developer Sterling Bay Co., which has since sold the Jefferson building.

The lease is for the top four floors of 111 N. Canal, which at about 58,000 square feet are more sprawling than in traditional office towers. It was completed in 1918 as one of two identitical warehouses for mail-order firm Butler Brothers Co. The north building, at 165 N. Canal, also has been converted to another use: residential lofts.

The West Loop had an overall vacancy rate of 14.1 percent in the third quarter, below the overall downtown rate of 14.7 percent, according to Los Angeles-based real estate brokerage CBRE Inc.